1.When your wife or girlfriend goes to the restroom in a restaurant. Do you accompany her to the restroom, and wait for her? Or do you let her go by herself while you wait at the table? This can be applicable towards children and elder parents too.

2.What if it's only you and your wife are there, and there is food and drinks on the table already? Do you accompany her and leave the food unattended? Or do you stay at the table and attend to the food while you hope your wife comes back unharmed?

3.How about if you and wife/kids are forced to shop during evening hours? Do you drop off your loved ones in front of the store and then park the car and meet up with them inside the store? Or do you park the car and everyone walks from the dark parking lot into the store?

4. What about after you and your family are done shopping? Do you get the car by yourself and then pick them up in front of the store where there are more shoppers standing around acting as a deterrent to violent crime? Or does your whole family walk together towards the car in the dark parking lot?

I liked the clip as well, Ray. What I liked about it was the entering, coming forward that has been very hard for me to learn as the first 15 years or so of my training did not include this. Initially almost every kumite and bunkai had us going backward "for safety in the dojo" which at the time made sense. A bushkin to the throat or nose isn't a good thing to be thrown by a dojo mate with poor control. Once control is reasonable, the training to come in, entering, is a must if you are going to finish off a bigger, stronger, more aggressive opponent quickly.

Something that jujitsu teaches, which can blend well from a uechi base, is getting the attacker on the ground and isolating a limb or even breaking it. JJ instructors familiar with Wally Jay all use one of his quotes: "Pain makes believers." The guy in the video Ray posted easily had the attacker in a position where he could have created a serious injury, something needed to take the fight out of an aggressive opponent.

Not sure what other styles or teachers called it but one of the concepts taught in jujitsu was "sticking" where you entered and kept coming forward to gain control of the attacker.This is best done and really can only be done coming forward. I think of it in seisan when the defender grabs the attacker around the beltline with the double opening from sanchin and pivots him to the right prior to the vertical elbow. Makes sense not to let him go, use him as a shield and keep on him till he's done.Also see in in kanshiwa bunkai as practiced in my dojo where we hold ground in the formal bunkai rather than yield.

Entering with the elbows leading, as in seisan vertical elbow or the double hiraken from the beginning of seiryu, are also great ways to enter as you are leading with weapons and the weapons are subtle and the moves both look like defensive reactions. To a trained guy these moves are anything but defensive. Might look inocuous to eyewitnesses.

And Rick, what I really like from your videos is the entering concepts. Entering, get him down, break something or at least sprain the sucker, and get out of there is the way to go.As noted earlier by Van, age is a factor in this and an older guy who has this element of suprise and mindest just could have an advantage over a younger, stronger, attacker who is expecting an easy mark.

I've seen many interpretations of the potential of seisan. This guy's one of the best IMO.

Since we only can retain a few key strategies in a confrontation, then getting as much as possible out of seisan makes to me. Daily kata practice and partner training with our own bunkai is a good way to solidify the benefits of this kata. With imagination and thoughtful it can cover it all.

JoEntering is not really an essential part of self defence. Usually if someone is attacking you then they will do the entering, so it is much more important to learn to get a good guard stance and cover, and if you are hit and you feel it ,to grab hold until your head clears.Generally though you should be moving all the time, even when you are striking an opponent, you should be lining up attack angles, looking for openings and targets. You can train this with BOB, what you do is throw a left right combination, then step to the side and throw the same combo to the side of BOB, then move behind and do the same again, then make up your own combos and do them, use head butts knee kicks, whatever.IMHO it doesn't matter a great deal what style you do, because all the best guys do the same thing, and I say this having studied many styles. The worst thing that you can do is be ponderous and slow, because if you train like that then that is what will come out, and it's not an age thing, I know we are all getting older, I'm 58.how did that happen but I can still move quick , or at least my hands can.Really there is no excuse look at this guyhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iJ_J88D ... watch-vrec

In my opinion, it is all situational. We must learn and drill all aspects of engagements, including the 'entry' which in my book also defines pre-emption or 'shortstopping' when appropriate, something that worked for me very well during my open tournament competition years, and in a couple of unfortunate real fights I had no way of evading.

And then there is the nature of your opponent, and the nature of the perceived attack to consider, something I have been pointing out time and again on this page.

There are times we will have time and distance to move and circle, and times when we will need to 'work' within people 'packed' together, such as a public transit incident, a house party going awry, a night at the local 'pub', and times when we have no choice but to quickly defend against a weapon, such a baseball bat, or a club etc., that seems to come out of nowhere. This is where i see the value of the Uechi style.

Also to remember ...A larger opponent, for example, will have sufficient size to shake off some off your punches and kicks. That means he will not mind taking two hits from you in order to get one strong blow in _that will take you down.

And situations where you are facing an opponent who will try to close the gap by using feints and combinations.

One of the best way to practice mobility and entry is to judge your opponent's reach, and keeping in close enough for you to be able to move swiftly in to attack, if the right decision. [Remember the larger, stronger, younger opponent who will not be fazed by your blows]

Now to me, the concept of entering emphasises the importance of sometimes placing oneself inside the "danger radius" of a partner's attack.

To illustrate the concept…Imagine a boxer's punch. The punch has gathered most of its power and effectiveness at or near the full extent of the boxer's arm.

Or someone swinging a club/bat at you_ the swing has momentum, weight and increasing speed as it extends to the target, and the most power and damage is at the end of the swing.

Conceptually this is the time to 'enter' the 'eye of the storm' i.e., inside the swing of the arm or the 'cocking' attack/momentum of the opponent…this will bring you "into" the circle of movement, so that the energy of the attack can either be directed along the circular plane_ or directly into the target for effective penetration, such as in the Uechi use of pointed weapons.

Looking after four grand kids is a great workout – exhausted but did have time to load up a small clip on what I think is an important skill set to have and one that CQC and Uechi blend into very well. As Josann has noted with his other training.

A small clip on the principles of locks and breaks:

Knowing how to lock and break is an important micro-moment skill set to have when that is what is going to make is so that you survive an assault. Here is a short clip that covers the underlying principles of what makes any lock or break work.

I sometimes over complicate the whole idea of fighting. As many times as I find myself doing that, I remind myself that in fights I've been involved in there wasn't any complicated thinking. I don't think it matters who the opponent is, how big, fast or strong he is, or what his particular deal is concerning me. All opponents in a confrontation are trying to kick my ass or kill me. I try not to distinguish between the two because sometimes one leads to the other.

I'm guessing that none of us here have ever once "thought anything out" when we were surprised with a violent encounter. We just reacted. And the beauty of martial arts is - we all prepare in our daily training, in our style and in our attitude in different ways. And we are all still here.

Hooray for us!

But this thread has gotten me thinking. I've been a little lazy in some of the "out of class" work I do that would/should be considered preparation. I got right on that. Thanks, guys.

Ottofighting is very simple, it always has been, when we complicate it we do a dis service to ourselves. you are right we never think it out, sometiomes after the event we consider then judge what we should have done or felt, we feel vindicated or dissapointed in our performance.but when you fight for real then it's just nice when it's over, when it's done. hopefully none of us like violence.so it's something that we avoid......real violence is different from what we do in the Dojo.we can destroy somebody, mentally spiritually, psychologically........physically, and that is fourth on my list.please note that.a woman can do a lot more damage to the first three than you can imagine.but maybe you already know that.....there is much more to the " Karate Life " than mere physical skill

I have to say though it is more your attitude and temprement that will lead you, this and a wee dram would get me in the mood

Rick Wilson wrote:Looking after four grand kids is a great workout – exhausted but did have time to load up a small clip on what I think is an important skill set to have and one that CQC and Uechi blend into very well. As Josann has noted with his other training.

A small clip on the principles of locks and breaks:

Knowing how to lock and break is an important micro-moment skill set to have when that is what is going to make is so that you survive an assault. Here is a short clip that covers the underlying principles of what makes any lock or break work.

I'm guessing that none of us here have ever once "thought anything out" when we were surprised with a violent encounter. We just reacted.

This is very true and I am a firm believer that there is the 'right and wrong reaction' to consider. Reason why I believe that we need to study and incorporate, ingrain_if you will...the defensive concepts most likely to work...in our training_ and our 'reaction' will most likely be the right one.

As to the working concepts, there is much out there to learn from...but the work of Rory Miller is king in my book.

What Ray writes about real violence being different than dojo violence is indeed a fact of life that the average intelligent person should have no difficulty grasping_ though there are exceptions, where a practitioner of martial arts really believes to the contrary...Rory Miller's work for one is very informative on the subject matter.

Real violence has always been rooted in the mental or behavioral characteristics of the individual or group.

The study of self preservation is indeed incomplete without an understanding of the development, structure, interaction, and collective behavior of organized groups of human beings, and the scientific analysis of a social institution as a functioning whole and as it relates to the rest of society.

It is important to understand that some individuals, are affected by a variety of issues, deep seated problems that can lead to social isolation and other destructive mental states state that alters cognitive control capacities in favor of disturbed goals.

Quote"What Ray writes about real violence being different than dojo violence is indeed a fact of life that the average intelligent person should have no difficulty grasping_ though there are exceptions, where a practitioner of martial arts really believes to the contrary...Rory Miller's work for one is very informative on the subject matter."

Real violence does not occur without a reason, we try to find that reason but sometimes it can be elusive, often outside of the realm of people that we call professionals. I remember one time we discussed a soldier who had been in Iraq and Afganistan being killed in a streetfight..he had knowledge of violence, but inappropriate for the situation that he found himself in..and so it goes...horses for courses ......or put another way which is the best car a porshe, a lambourginhi...or a land Rover.......see the dilema no different than street violence, classical karate etc..............at some point you make the blend yourself

Te only way to look at all this..including classical karate...is that they are simply 'tools'...I keep lots of 'tools' around...classical karate[Uechi for me...the one and only] is but only one of the formidable tools you need to have to blend with the rest of the continuum...psychological/physical etc.

The key is to train properly and to condition for years on end the natural body weapons.